Jake Schreier’s Robot & Frank is an unexpected cult hit in the making

Film Review: C-3PO and R2-D2 have got serious competition as best movie robot ever in the iPod-meets-cereal-box form of Robot, the star of this addictively quirky US indie.

Set in ‘the near future’ it casts Frost/Nixon’s Frank Langella as a retired, unrepentantly rogueish cat burglar called Frank who, now aged 70-odd, is starting to lose his marbles. His grown-up children (Liv Tyler and James Marsden) are too busy to care for him so they buy him a robot ‘carer’ (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard).

A delightfully light and funny comedy/drama, it is deceptively about more than you’d think. A romantic sub-plot links Frank to a comely librarian (Susan Sarandon), who has a helper robot called Mr Darcy and whose library is being revamped as a hipster hang-out because the youngsters think books are now retro-cool.

Ageing, isolation, broken families, memory and the impact of modern technology are all playfully woven through a smart, comforting narrative that’s at once immensely satisfying yet wonderfully unexpected. A cult hit in the making.